Those Who Favor Fire
by RunMild
Summary: Three ways Darcy could've met Anders—"Run." "Are you injured?" "You shouldn't be here."—and how it actually comes to pass.
1. Chapter 1

Three ways Darcy could've met Anders—

" _Run._ "

"Are you injured?"

"You shouldn't be here."

—and how it actually comes to pass.

1.

Having stepped through portals before, Darcy can say with certainty that this has been the least… turbulent of her trips. She picks up her foot in Washington and sets it down in another world. It takes her another five steps to realize it, and two deep breaths before she unclips her communicator.

"Hey." Her thumb digs into the talk button. "Jane."

The forest around her is no less green or damp than the one she was just traipsing through—charting temporal fluctuations, ostensibly, but mostly eating a bag of trail mix and watching the light on her flux-capacitor-whatsit blink steadily—but something indefinable has changed. The air quality, maybe? She waits patiently for a response from the other end, tonguing a bit of peanut in her back molar and staring up at the (unremarkable, at least to a city girl) foliage.

There's a burst of static, then nothing.

The energy reader remains quiet through all of this, the red light blinking placidly. Darcy, not for the first time, questions the reliability of equipment held together with duct tape and prayer. She gives it a shake.

Nothing.

The general rule is to stay put when one is lost in the woods, but Darcy doesn't think that that guidebook was written to encompass situations of interstellar displacement. Any illusions of merely being teleported elsewhere in the same forest were dashed when she got a good look at the trees—and the sky above them.

Two moons.

Two moons and _no_ "Binary Sunset" accompaniment.

It's a tragedy on many levels.

So, fickle energy reader in hand, Darcy sets out under the foreign sky, two pale crescents mocking her even under the watchful eye of the sun. And, hey, at least there's that. The nearby star looks to be a near replica of Earth's sun. And those birds? Very Earth-sounding. Even the voices sound huma—

Darcy nearly drops the blinking device in her shock.

 _People_.

Granted, they sound like _angry_ people, but a people's a people, and on an alien planet, Darcy will take an angry mob over being lost alone in the woods with only faulty equipment and a dwindling bag of trail mix for company. She turns to locate the distant shouting, squinting through the uncertain light. She thinks it's coming from somewhere to her left, but it's hard to tell with the trees splintering sounds and bouncing them back in slightly different directions. Still, Darcy gamely makes her way forward—

—Only to be met with a solid body rocketing through the undergrowth. Darcy is too startled to even scream, and then what air she might've used to raise an alarm is punched from her lungs as she becomes intimately acquainted with the rocky soil of this world. She falls in a tangle of limbs and— _ow_ —elbows, the heavy form of a human-looking man pressing her into the forest floor. Normally, Darcy would have a thing or two to say about strange men lying on top of her—and a taser close at hand—but the dude seems infinitely more alarmed than even she, his glass-shard eyes wide and panicked, the whites showing all the way around.

He looks hunted.

Darcy flounders, gaping, hoping to reinflate her shriveled lungs, but the man slaps a hand over her mouth, looking back towards the voices and pressing her, if possible, even further into the ground. There's a rock digging into her spine, and Darcy still. Can't. _Breathe_.

Vague memories of a freshman year self-defense course float to the surface, and she executes a very messy escape maneuver, only made possible by the fact that this guy isn't really trying to restrain her—he's just unfairly tall and made entirely of limbs.

" _Gah_ ," Darcy heaves. She turns half on her side, gasping into the not-Earth leaves, one leg still trapped beneath the offending company. The shouting is definitely getting closer. Darcy can put two and two together, and the four is looking a lot like a mad dash through an alien forest is imminent. She just needs to catch her breath—

A howl pierces through the fog of her oxygen-deprived thoughts, joined in chorus by several others. The baying picks up as the last howl tapers off, and it's unmistakably the triumphant sound of hounds who have locked onto their prey. They are close—much closer than the men. A spark of adrenaline races through her extremities, setting every nerve alight, and Darcy turns to meet the man's sharp gaze. She can feel a fine tremor through his contact with her leg. The look that they share transcends any culture or language barrier.

 _Fear._

The man is upright before Darcy can really comprehend the movement, a flurry of robes and fear-tight motion. He jerks down, scooping something—a staff, she thinks—from the ground, before turning to regard her. His jaw is tight, set to match the steel in his eyes, and Darcy is already scrambling upright before he reaches for her. His long fingers find her upper arm, steadying her with the briefest pressure. He glances back in the direction of his pursuers, then at Darcy, nodding once in some silent agreement with himself.

His lips part, and when he speaks, it is with accented, but clearly understandable English.

" _Run._ "

Darcy doesn't need to be told twice.

* * *

End Note:

In case it's unclear, this takes place during one of Anders's attempts to escape the Circle. Is he successful? Hmmm...


	2. Chapter 2

Three ways Darcy could've met Anders—

" _Run._ "

"Are you injured?"

"You shouldn't be here."

—and how it actually comes to pass.

* * *

2.

Time moves differently underground. The waning light of her cell phone—eight percent— _eight percent_ —says it's been less than two days, but to Darcy it feels like an age. She double checks that the battery saver mode is on and locks it, lip trembling. She doesn't know what will happen when that last lifeline is cut, but she can already feel her tether to rational thought fraying.

There's a scurrying sound in the dark. Darcy tucks her phone away and grips her other piece of security: an honest-to-Thor sword. It's a little rusty, but it's served her well so far. Never let it be said that Darcy Lewis doesn't roll with punches. When life gives her lemons, she puts inexpert holes in them.

The noise moves closer. Darcy puts her back to the wall and waits, arms trembling, fingers creaking around the grip.

And to think, only two days ago, she was excited at the thought of adventure.

" _Ms. Lewis, I'm going to need you to step behind me."_

 _Darcy looks back at the security guy. He's just this side of jack-booted thug, and after the whole New Mexico incident, she doesn't have a wealth of trust for those types._

" _The only thing we have to worry about down here are hobos and the odd R.O.U.S," Darcy says, one should raised. The check of this subway tunnel is more of a formality than anything, which is why Jane put Darcy in charge of it._

" _If you find it, take a reading," Jane told her upon sending her off with a pat and a proverbial packed lunch. "Or, no, call me,_ then _take a reading. Unless it's fluctuating, in which case, take a read—"_

" _Jane. I've got this." No matter that Darcy isn't entirely sure what "this" is, and with vague instructions like "you'll know it when you see it," Jane'll be fortunate if Darcy doesn't bring back a couple of subway strays._

 _But, no, she's being given a responsibility, and Darcy will see it through. It's kind of a bummer that she's on the dud team—duo—and destined to find nothing, but maybe next time she'll be sent off without training wheels. It's almost like Jane forgets who held her own in London and New Mexico. Darcy even has some shiny new skills now. She's taking some online science courses, going to the gym semi-regularly—she's_ got _this._

 _Then things go sideways._

" _GET DOWN."_

 _Darcy's hands are hitting the floor before her guard gets the last word out. There's the deafening sound of gunfire in an enclosed space, and Darcy closes her eyes against the strobe light effect. The unholy shrieking of something inhuman is a sound she'll hear in her dreams._

 _She opens her eyes when the shooting stops abruptly, shuffling around to see her guard getting bum rushed by… oh, shit, what_ is _that?_

 _The gun isn't a match for the creature's strength at close range, and there's a sickening CRACK and her guy is yelling, and the orc-thing is screeching, and Darcy doesn't waste time with Jane's equipment_ or _her cell phone._

 _Darcy may not be a thunder god, but she can channel lightening with the best of them._

" _Thor sends his regards," she says when the creature drops._

 _It's pretty much her most badass moment ever._

 _Wet coughing ends her short-lived adrenaline rush._

" _Hey, man, you okay?" It's a stupid question. She fumbles with her phone—the light on the end of her guard's gun was broken with the rest of the weapon—and taps the flashlight app. She gets her first good look at the damage and hisses between her teeth._

" _Get—" The guy coughs again, the growing stain on his front shining wetly in the light. "—get my radio. Tell them—" He interrupts himself again, sounding like a man drowning._

" _Shh, I got it." Darcy doesn't "got" anything. Darcy is in way over her head._

" _Bit worse than—rodents," he says as she pats him down and unclips his radio._

" _Aw, you did get my reference," Darcy says, her voice a bit thick. She holds the radio to her mouth. "Darcy to, uh, command? We've found it. I think. We need a medic for—" She belatedly realizes she doesn't know his name._

" _Delaney," he prompts._

"— _Delaney. I repeat, Delaney is injured and needs immediate medical assistance."_

 _The line is silent._

 _A cold bead of sweat runs down Darcy's neck._

" _Darcy to command, do you read me?" She and Delaney don't break eye contact as the seconds tick by with no response._

" _One sec," Darcy mutters, setting the radio down. She clicks off her phone light, only to be illuminated a moment later by the pale glow of her retro meme background._

 _Wow, such science._

 _Very discovery._

 _There are no bars, which shouldn't be all that surprising down here, but this baby is a Stark phone. Would've cost her a kidney if she hadn't gotten it as a job perk. Stark phones have nearly full coverage; she could be on a journey to the center of the earth and still be able to stream video with minimal buffering._

 _And yet, no signal._

" _Don't panic or anything, but we may be screwed."_

Delaney hadn't panicked, but Darcy has been having a low-grade panic attack ever since. She's not entirely sure how he's lasted this long, but he's breathing unevenly behind her, either asleep or unconscious. He gave her his dog tags sometime early this morning— _"Just—just take them. In case."_ —and she has them around her neck, warm against her skin. It is perhaps the only warm thing down here. She hefts her sword, taken from a fallen creature—her taser lost charge after their second run-in with the tunnel orcs—and tries not to think about her eight percent phone battery.

The scuttling is almost on top of her now.

Darcy is _not_ going to die here.

She takes a breath and swings her weapon with a grunt, hoping that the element of surprise is still on her side. It's the only thing that's gotten her through so far; she's under no illusion that she's some great sword master.

The light of a nearby torch throws the cave into just enough relief that Darcy can see her adversary. She and the bunny are both pretty surprised at the sound of the sword hitting the cave wall. The reverberation of metal-on-stone _hurts_ , and Darcy nearly drops her weapon.

"What the _hell_ , dude?" Darcy hisses.

The bunny doesn't respond except to high-tail it out of the tunnel. Darcy is disturbed to see that it looks… hairless? What kind of pale, cave-dwelling creature is she going to find next—Gollum?

"L'wis?" Delaney (Patrick, according to his tags) shifts behind her.

"False alarm," she says, staring out towards the entrance of their tunnel. There's a corner, and she can't see what lies beyond.

Delaney makes a pained noise. "You sh'ld go."

"We've been over this." Her voice is tight. "I've leveled up, like, five times already. By the time we find the final boss, I'll be ready. You just keep breathing."

Delaney doesn't answer, and Darcy glances back to see that his eyes are closed again. He looks like the avatar of death. The skin around his mouth looks like a bruise, his eyes two hollows in a sunken face. He's getting worse. Darcy can feel a good cry coming on, but beats back the flood of tears with vicious pragmatism.

 _Not the time, Lewis_.

It's become apparent over the course of two days that Darcy's not in Manhattan anymore. She and Delaney tried to backtrack to the main subway tunnel, but by the time he lost mobility, Darcy was already coming to the realization that the cave walls around them aren't part of any underground system that she knows. It's like the grimdark reboot of her childhood fantasy of tunnels leading from her backyard sandbox all the way to China. She feels like rather than getting closer to the surface, she and Delaney have gone deeper into the bowels of the earth. Darcy's terrified that they're going to encounter more than just patrols of the orcs. It's obvious that there's a population down here _some_ where—the wall torches don't light themselves—and to Darcy's knowledge, they all attack on sight.

She'd give anything for some sunlight and a water bottle.

Instead, she gets an ambush and a heart attack.

There's no scuffling or fanfare before the orcs come crashing around the corner, blocking the dim light of the torch and throwing Darcy and Delaney into further shadow. Darcy can count them by the nocturnal glow of their eyes: five. That's three more than she's had to deal with at one time, and this time _they_ have the element of surprise. There's a scream caught high in her throat, choking the air from her lungs.

" _Delaney_ —the light!" Darcy uses the precious half second before the orcs are on top of her to reach into her hoodie pocket and toss her phone at the man blindly.

 _Please, please catch it._

She's already swinging when the first one is in range, putting the strength of both her arms behind it. The orc catches it on his own blade, but she kicks out and hacks at his neck in the same movement, and manages to catch him off guard. He falls, not dead, but wounded, and with that, Darcy has used up her quota of surprise for this encounter. The others converge at once, their greater mass and arm reach spelling her end.

Two things happen at once, then: a blinding light blinks on behind her, and a ball of flame engulfs the orc closest to the entrance. Not one to look a flaming gift horse in the mouth, Darcy rushes the nearest orc, up under his guard before he can lash out. She misses his neck, her aim going wild, but buries her blade in the side of his ugly face, then yanks it out and tries again. Black blood sprays her, hot and viscous, with a smell that she fears will never wash out of her Culver hoodie. The sound that breaks from her throat is nearly inhuman.

"Anders, the girl!" a voice calls out from the head of the tunnel.

"Little busy," another voice answers. There's another burst of flame, and a sound not unlike a creature being burned alive.

Darcy steps on the fallen orc in front of her and gives a hard pull, her sword sliding out of its head with a liquid squelch. She swallows hard.

Her distraction is almost so great that she doesn't see the last creature escaping past her, toward the other exit—the way Darcy originally came—and, more alarmingly, toward Delaney.

Nothing about her fighting style could be called "smooth" or "practiced," but the way Darcy throws herself in the path of the last orc is particularly graceless.

"Son of a _bitch_ ," she seethes. They are too close to relief for her to let something happen to her guard now.

The irony of that statement does not escape her.

The orc nearly bowls her over in its haste to be gone. There's a lick of pain along her arm where his blade catches, but Darcy's an adrenaline rush given form. She can take down this guy _and_ his ugly mother. She can fight an _army_ of orc mothers. She can—

—Get tossed bodily into the tunnel wall for her troubles.

Knocked for a loop, Darcy misses the exact moment the last orc goes down, but she blinks a few times, and there's a small woman standing above the corpse, wiping dual blades on its armor disgustedly.

"Don't know why I try," she grumbles. "Not as though this one's any cleaner."

Darcy blinks again and there's a man in front of her. She gets a fuzzy impression of blond hair and warm eyes, but she feels a little… drunk. Or hungover, more like. The tiny Mjolnir behind her eye socket is really going at it.

"Are you injured?" the man asks, one hand tilting her chin up. His other hand seems to be… holding fire? She squints as he tilts her head side to side, peering into her eyes. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Darcy's eyes nearly cross as she examines the three flaming digits.

"Does that hurt?" she asks. She's done the whole germ-x and fire on the hand thing, and it doesn't take long to burn down to the skin.

Somehow she doesn't think that's what this is about.

"Anders?" Another man approaches, hand on the pommel of his sword. Darcy has to blink to make sure she's really seeing the facial tats and distinctly pointy ears.

Huh.

Still not the weirdest thing she's encountered today.

"She's concussed," the man holding her face says. His hand is still on fire. "But I don't sense any taint."

The elf guy crouches, also staring at her intensely. Darcy's starting to feel uncomfortable for reasons that have little to do with her throbbing head.

"No, she's clean," the elf says. "Your Maker must be real after all." He claps a hand on her knee, addressing her this time. "Perhaps I'll convert."

The other man snorts. "Don't bother."

"While you two are fawning over the pretty girl, this one's expiring."

Darcy jerks her head around—and okay, wow, bad call—to see the small woman kneeling next to Delaney.

The man—Andrew, did the elf say?—gives her one more once over, more clinical than sexual, before moving to the fallen guard. He whistles. "This one's up to his neck in taint."

The woman shakes her head. "And wounded."

The three of them seem to have a conversation with their eyes.

Darcy coughs. She doesn't know what realm they've unwittingly stumbled into, but it's obviously one with magic, and Delaney might need a little supernatural intervention at this point.

"Hey, if we could speed things up, that'd be great. We've been down here two days already, and Delaney needs a doctor."

They all turn to regard her at once. It's more than a little unnerving.

"What in Andraste's name brought you to the Deep Roads in the first place?" the fire guy asks.

"We, uh." Darcy shifts further upright and winces. "We got… lost."

"Lost," the elf says flatly. He stands in front of—but slightly apart from—the other two. By the way he carries himself, Darcy would be willing to bet he's the leader.

"It's a long story," she says. It's the least helpful explanation, but they really don't have time to get into the details. "Can you help us? Please?"

They all share another long look, and Darcy is already getting really sick of that.

"Your friend has the Blight," the elf says. "I'm afraid the options are limited."

Darcy has no idea what that means, but it doesn't sound good.

"Um. What are our options, then?" She looks at Delaney, hoping for his input, but his head is hanging limp. Her phone is laying screen down on the ground next to his curled fingers. The flashlight is still on and casting the area in a surreal glow.

"Death or conscription." The elf's voice is grave.

"Come again?" She's not sure if it's the head injury or the shock of his words, but Darcy thinks she might be having an out-of-body experience.

"Will he last until camp?" the elf asks the man beside him, ignoring her again. Great. Awesome.

"I can heal his injury. That'll buy us some time."

"Do it."

The blond man nods, kneeling beside Delaney. Darcy watches with detached amazement as he lays glowing hands on her companion's torso and just… pushes it into him. The light doesn't look like fire, and it doesn't appear to be hurting either party. It's almost… pulsing. Like a heartbeat. It throws the planes of both men's faces into relief. Delaney looks even worse lit from below, the hollows in his face appearing cavernous. The other man's—what _is_ his name?—eyebrows are drawn in concentration, lips moving ever so slightly. His eyes are the strangest of all, lighting up like Darcy's phone, but with a softer glow.

This… this may _actually_ be the strangest thing she's seen. Today, at least.

After several minutes, Delaney spasms, back arching with the force of his coughs. Something spatters his lips with each harsh jerk of his shoulders.

"Welcome back," the healer— _Anton?_ —says warmly. "Now let's try to hang onto that thread of life and not undo all of my hard work."

"W-wha-?" Delaney gasps around his coughs.

"We have to move," the elf says.

"Where are the other layabouts, anyway?" Ansel asks, sliding one arm beneath Delaney's and levering him up with a grunt. The woman goes to brace him on the other side. She doesn't reach much higher than Delaney's hip, but it doesn't look like it bothers her overmuch.

Darcy just sits and breathes and tries to keep her spinning head together.

The elf closes his eyes, and Darcy can see them flicker rapidly beneath his lids. "They're close," he says. "We'll meet them if we move _now._ " He turns to her. "Can you walk?"

"I can waltz, tango, and two-step."

A ghost of a smile flickers across his face. "Walking is fine for now."

It turns out that walking is a tad harder than Darcy originally thought, but she uses her sword as a walking stick of sorts—and she doesn't miss the wince of the blade-wielders of the group—and stumbles on.

"I'm afraid we didn't ask your name," says the healer whose name Darcy has given up on remembering. "I blame our rudeness on our _extremely_ limited opportunities for socialization in these parts."

"Darcy," she says, blinking against the vertigo.

"Lovely to meet you, Darcy. I'm Anders." _Right_ , Anders. "The fearsome dwarf is Sigrun, and our leader—slow _down_ , Theron, some of us are _encumbered_ —is none other than Warden Mahariel, the hero of Fereldan." He says the last bit like Darcy should know the name and title, so she "hmm's" in acknowledgement.

He must take her visible confusion as a sign of her injury. "When we get back to camp, I'll get your head sorted. Sorry about not doing it before. Priorities and all. Never know when an extra bit of mana will be needed, especially down here."

Darcy nods again, not sure if he's looking, and past the point of caring. She reaches up to rub at some of the drying gore on her face. A hand catches her own.

"Oh, you really don't want to do that," Anders says, angling himself so that he can grasp her and still support Delaney. "Not if you've managed to dodge the taint 'til now."

"Um," Darcy says, blinking. Her fingers twitch against his warmer ones.

"The blood spreads it," he continues helpfully. "We don't exactly have a bath set up down here, but we'll figure out something to get you all washed up."

"Oh, is this washing-up going to be a joint effort?" Sigrun asks, voice wry.

"Jealous that I've never extended you the same offer?"

"Relieved, more like."

Darcy sways a little, off balance in more ways than one.

" _Children,_ " Mahariel calls out from up ahead.

"Just some light-hearted banter to keep our spirits alive, _Father._ "

Darcy watches as a spasm works its way up Mahariel's whole spine. "Please refrain from ever calling me that again."

Anders opens his mouth, the smug tilt to his lips betraying the nature of response even as he's interrupted by the arrival of several more blue-and-gray clad figures. How many people are _in_ this cave system, anyway? Darcy thinks someone should spread the good news of their lord and savior, the sun. Maybe she's the Chosen One. She will lead them to the cleansing light above.

"Look who _fiiinally_ decided to show up," a patch of facial hair drawls. "And only after we dispatched half of the bloody darkspawn army."

"Six," a woman's voice corrects. "There were six."

Another dwarf and elf. Darcy thinks that it's probably rude to stare at the braided orange monstrosity on the dwarf's face, but she can't quite bring herself to look away. Is it _sentient?_ She thinks it may be moving independently of his mouth.

"And you brought company!" the object of her concern says. He steps right into Darcy's face, a good height for it as Darcy is slumped over her stabby makeshift walking stick. "It's alright to admire, luv. Might even let you touch it if you ask real nice." He winks.

"Oh, _gross_ , Ohgren."

"Have a little decency!"

"I _will_ make good on my offer to burn it off."

A hand claps down on the guffawing dwarf's shoulder. "Enough," Mahariel says. "Where is Justice?"

"I am here."

Darcy, exhausted in mind, body, and soul, still finds enough energy to raise her sword at the newcomer. Her grip's a little shaky, but she'll be damned if she gets offed by a run-of-the-mill _zombie_ this late in the game.

 _What the_ actual _hell?_

"Relax." Anders puts his hand over hers and she is powerless to resist when he pushes down. She doesn't get the impression that he's actually exerting any pressure, which is just. Really insulting. "Justice is with us."

Dead eyes regard her, though no facial ticks reveal any kind of emotion. Darcy can trace the exact shape of his skull with her eyes, the skin sunken, tight and graying against the bone.

"Right." Her voice is faint. She's suddenly very cognizant of the blood on her face. Is it _zombifying_ blood? "…Right."

Because why not? She's got elves, she's got dwarves, she's got cave orcs. Why not zombies, too?

"—ey. Hey." Anders has her by the shoulder. "It's going to be okay. You're going to be okay." He smiles. Darcy gets the impression that he always has a little smile caught in the corner of his mouth—like he's warm with the pretense of smugness.

Maybe she's just tired.

"Yeah," she says. She bites her lip to keep it from wobbling.

"Who's the… limp human?"

Darcy hopes the elf woman is referring to Delaney. With the mild distain she's leveling at both of them, it's hard to tell.

" _Velanna._ " Mahariel sighs, and Darcy can definitely see where the "dad" thing came from. "We found them in the southern tunnels. This one—" Here, he makes a curt gesture toward Darcy. "—is miraculously untainted. Her friend is not so fortunate."

"Guard," Darcy says. She doesn't know why it matters.

"Pardon?"

"He's my… guard."

Darcy doesn't have to be part of their cave-dwelling hivemind to understand to unspoken conversation. There are several raised eyebrows, an abruptly silenced chuckle— _Ohgren_ —and one literal dead stare.

"He's having an off day?" she tries. Her shoulders twitch upward, too tired to properly shrug.

"If he's your guard," Sigrun says, "you're going to have to take sword lessons from someone other than the local butcher. Who taught you to swing like that?"

 _Movies_.

"I'm, uh. Self-taught." They've started moving again, and Darcy's sword is scraping along the ground. Sigrun's eye visibly twitches.

They move into a narrower tunnel, Anders taking all of Delaney's weight so that Sigrun can walk behind, nearly single file. Darcy trudges in front of him, and he's so close that she can feel his body heat.

"So you, a self-taught sword mistress, and your unarmored, _unarmed_ guard ventured down to the Deep Roads to… what? Sightsee?" He sounds equally appalled and bemused.

"I hear it's lovely this time of year."

He snorts. "Incredible."

They take a left into a nearly invisible entrance. Darcy's reminded of the maze in _Labyrinth_. It's the only part of this hellish journey that's been Henson-esque.

"Oh, good, the warriors are back. I was just tying my apron strings."

The man in the cavern is not David Bowie. He doesn't have the pants or the voice. He does, in fact, sound like he has a head cold.

"Keep whinging and I'll recommend bed rest for a _week,_ " Anders says. He and Sigrun heave Delaney into the center of the cave and lay him out on a bedroll near what looks to be the cooking fire. Darcy fleetingly hopes this place is ventilated.

"Your cat pissed in Ohgren's bed," the sick man continues, voice thick. He valiantly suppresses a sneeze, but it looks like it physically pains him.

"I'm sure it will only improve the smell," Anders says. "Now shut up, I'm concentrating." His power manifests in his hands and Darcy watches as he performs what must be the high fantasy equivalent of an MRI. She sits down nearby and settles in for the long-haul, sword resting beside her.

"What on earth is a lady and her man doing in a hole like this?"

Darcy cranes her neck up at the dark-haired man. The question makes her want to sigh until all the air is shoved from her lungs, until she collapses in on herself. "I just really like rocks, man."

Sigrun looks interested.

"Well, it looks like you both have had your fill," the man says, humoring her. He reaches out as if to take her hand, then looks closer at her blood exfoliant and thinks better of it. "Nathaniel."

"Darcy."

Anders stands from his kneeling position, and the whole party looks to him. "He's conscious—barely." He looks to Mahariel. "Are you really going to…?"

Mahariel jerks his chin once. "If he consents, I have the flask."

Anxiety is creeping up Darcy's neck. Whatever else they're talking about, at least there's mention of consent? She's still not convinced.

Mahariel kneels beside Delaney's prone form.

"'lo," Delaney manages.

"You have two choices, Delaney." He pronounces it De-LAH-nee. "The first: you die, painlessly, here. It is no shameful thing to fall protecting those you serve. We will not allow you to suffer and succumb."

Translation: they will kill him.

Darcy jerks forward, but is held back by Anders, who has come to crouch beside her. She looks up at him furiously.

"What. The. _Fuck?_ "

"Shh, it's his choice. Just listen." His mouth lifts in a joyless smile, but his thumb traces circles over her shoulder. She wonders if he knows he's doing it. His attention is on the dying guard.

"Do not mistake the second choice for the easiest of the two," Mahariel continues, calm at the center of the cavern's drama. "The only cure for the Blight is conscription: join the Grey Wardens, take the oath, and take up arms against the Darkspawn. There is no guarantee that you will survive the Joining, but should you live, your life belongs to the cause." The elf removes a flask from his waist and uncorks it. "In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death... sacrifice."

Darcy can feel the long-awaited tears welling in her eyes. It feels like there's a magic to the moment, the stillness in the cave broken only by Delaney's ragged breathing. He says something too low for Darcy to hear, and Mahariel responds in kind.

Delaney nods.

"Oh, _God,_ " Darcy says.

She's not sure she would have made a different choice in Delaney's position, but after Mahariel's speech, everything seems so _final_. It's like watching a door close and knowing it will never open again. It's like walking into a subway tunnel knowing full well you'll never come out.

(Oh, would that she _had_ known.)

Mahariel braces Delaney so that he can raise one shaking hand to the flask. The elf helps guide it as the man brings it to his mouth.

Darcy watches his throat work as he swallows, her lungs still. Everyone else seems to be holding their breath, too, waiting for… something. Anders shifts closer to her, warm and bracing. His jaw is tight.

Delaney slumps back, eyes half-open and glazed. Darcy darts forward again, and this time Anders lets her go.

"Delaney? _Delaney?_ " Darcy can't do this. She can't watch this man die. And, terribly, she knows that some of her fear is selfish.

 _Don't leave me alone here._

A blanket of silence lays heavily over the cavern.

 _In death, sacrifice._

"Delaney, _please._ "

A cough. His eyes open. Blink.

He turns his head, gives her a wan smile. "You can… you can call me Pat."

Darcy laughs through her tears.

* * *

Later, when Pat has been fully tended and left to recuperate (" _He's going to need a lot more than a sip of Darkspa—er, that flask—to be fully recovered._ "), Darcy sits with Anders, letting him examine her.

For injuries, of course.

"We'll be returning to the surface after Pat is healed." He parts her hair gently, looking for contusions. His fingers feel nice, and after everything, Darcy is nearly nodding off.

"Mmm, good. Sunlight."

The deliberate movements slowly deteriorate into hair stroking. Darcy doesn't call him on it. The guy lives in a cave.

"Yes, sunlight. And… civilization." He pauses. "Will you be okay returning home without your… guard?"

The way he says "guard" makes Darcy realize the conclusion that they've all reached.

"Oh, no, we're not—we weren't even on a first name basis." She makes a face.

"Yes, I did think that was odd." Anders's hands are working literal magic into her scalp. Darcy is boneless under his careful touch. "Still, I'm sorry. Truly, I am."

"You said it yourself: his choice." She rubs at the flaking Darkspawn (not cave orc—apparently they don't know what orcs are here) blood on the backs of her hands. "And I don't know that I _can_ return home."

His hands stop and Darcy nearly wants to cry again.

"Now that's a sentiment I understand all too well." He squeezes her briefly and stands. "And I did promise you some form of washing-up. Wait here."

He says that as if she can do anything _but_ wait. Darcy tucks her forehead against her knees, Darkspawn smell be damned, and tries not to panic.

What if she _can't_ return home?

Her skills lay firmly in the modern realm: Microsoft Office competency, proficiency in microwave use, some meager hacking skills—the usual resumé fillers.

She doesn't know the first thing about surviving outside of the urban hellscape.

"Well, it's no perfumed bathtub, but this'll take care of the worst of it," Anders says, waterskin in hand. "I'm afraid the clothes are a lost cause, but we have some spares to get you through. I hope you like blue and gray."

Darcy runs a hand over the Culver logo in regret. It's her softest hoodie.

Anders sits beside her again, wetting a clean—and presumably untainted—cloth, motioning for her to lean in. "It's not that I don't think you can handle this yourself, but I can see all the spots." He meets her halfway and passes the cloth over the curve of one cheek. The water is so icy, Darcy's surprised it's not solid.

"Sorry," Anders says. "I know it's cold."

"S'okay," she says, closing her eyes so that she doesn't have to stare into his unnervingly amber eyes. They're almost the same color as his earring in the low light of the cave. "Thank you."

He laughs, low and a bit self-deprecating. "Please don't thank me. As I said—not much chance for socializing down here. Or up there, really, what with the Cause keeping us on the move."

Darcy can hear the capital "C" in his voice.

"You're not happy in the Wardens?" She's thinking of Del— _Pat_ , of course, but no one should be confined to a lifestyle they hate. This is way more involved than just a crappy job.

"'Happiness' isn't really part of the Wardens' creed. The big selling points are war, victory, and death. Very convincing, that. Has volunteers just lining up in Denerim." He folds the cloth to a clean corner and gently swipes it over her lips.

Darcy waits until he moves on to the other side of her face to speak. "So leave."

Anders hisses a little under his breath and glances back toward the group.

"This isn't a career, love. It's—" He looks for the words, hand hovering under her right eye. "It's a part of us. We can never get away, much as we might… dream otherwise."

Darcy's entire life has just been uprooted, so maybe her viewpoint is a little skewed, but that sounds like quitter talk.

"Lots of things remain a part of us even after they're gone." She tilts her head, forcing his hand to follow. "You were a champion of choice earlier." Her eyes dart to Pat's sleeping form.

Anders finally pulls his hand back and regards her fully.

"It occurs to me that you are a very dangerous woman, Darcy." The speculative look in his eyes says he doesn't disapprove.

"Did the sword not do it for you?"

"Frankly," he says, "I think that sword is the _least_ dangerous thing about you."

Darcy will take that as a compliment.

* * *

E/N

...as opposed to a commentary on her warrior skills, which it undoubtedly is, somewhat.


	3. Chapter 3

Three ways Darcy could've met Anders—

" _Run._ "

"Are you injured?"

"You shouldn't be here."

—and how it actually comes to pass.

3.

Darcy's, like, the authority on lucid dreaming.

"It's kind of like a game lobby, you know?" she tells Evan from her freshman psych class. "Once you get there, you can enter any number of scenarios."

Evan nods like he's following. "So, you have a staging area? For dreams?"

"Mm, basically."

Raquel raises her hand like Darcy's leading a seminar instead of holding court at a table in the student cafeteria.

"You, in the hoodie." Darcy points with a fry.

"Do you have nightmares?"

"Oh, sure. Really bad ones." Darcy bites her fry in half and chews, contemplative. "They can be super sneaky, too. But once you realize you're dreaming, they've lost half their power."

"How do you get to that point, though?"

"I bet you have a totem," Evan says. He's grinning like he has this lucid dreaming thing figured out. Like he even _knows_.

"Evan, you ignorant slut, this isn't a _movie_." Darcy sighs gustily. Half of the fun is the drama. "Sometimes it's just about consistency. Dreams aren't very static, and you can catch them in the act of shifting."

"You talk about them like they're alive or something," Raquel says, shaking her head. "I just dream about forgetting my pants at home and not remembering my seventh-grade locker combination."

"Deep stuff." Evan nods, mock sympathetic. Raquel shoves him. "I just want to have my flying dreams in peace, y'know?" He fends off the other girl's hands.

Darcy nods, a god among her people.

"I feel you, man."

There's a niggling voice in the back of her head, when listening to her friends discuss their dreams, that wonders if maybe her experiences aren't standard.

* * *

The woman won't stop screaming.

"Listen, I'm not—would you _quit that?"_ Darcy doesn't know why her own subconscious is constantly trying to attack her, but she's sure there's some deep underlying meaning.

"Get away from me, _demon!"_ There's some other cursing, but it's in gibberish.

Darcy holds up her hands. "You leave! I was here first."

This happens sometimes, in her dream lobby. Darcy learned a long time ago that while she has a pretty good handle on her dreams, her subconscious is a stubborn bitch. It throws angry shades at her from time to time when she's just chilling, and even when they're humanoid, they're hard to shake.

The woman takes a swipe at her.

" _Woah_ , calm down, Arwen!" Like so many before her, this shade has pointed ears. Darcy readily admits that she has a Thing for elves, but she still feels dragged. She peers at the woman's face, trying to place it. She's read that everyone who appears in a person's dreams is someone the dreamer has seen in reality, but she can never quite place the people she sees here, elf ears or not. It plagues her even in her waking hours, trying to file away the people she meets on the street for further analysis. If she could just _remember,_ maybe she could banish them and get back to her regularly scheduled dreaming.

She's thinking something beach-y tonight. Maybe she'll revisit that Washington coast her family spent a week shivering near when she was ten.

Maybe she'll be a mermaid.

The woman backs off, panting. They stare at each other.

 _Library worker?_

Nah.

 _Someone from the caf?_

Could be. Darcy sees a lot of faces there.

She could be someone Darcy's passed on the commons, even. The possibilities are maddingly infinite.

"Look, we don't have to do this. I mean, you're not even _real,_ so all things considered—" Darcy pauses, head cocked.

There's something coming. She can feel it like static across her skin. It's the herald before a lightning strike.

"Oh, _fu—_ "

It's her last clear thought before her mind dumps her, ass-over-teakettle, into a nightmare. It happens like this sometimes, like an inescapable wave crashing over her head. Some nightmares take longer to reorient and break surface, gasping and crying back to reality.

For now, she drowns.

 _There's been an accident._

 _Everyone—dead._

 _There's no hope, no way out._

 _Why do you try to break free of the cycle?_

 _Grasping hands, a face made of teeth—_

And then, the storm hits.

As suddenly as the dream came, it is gone, ripped away like a dark curtain. Darcy is spat out, not into the waking world, but back into the strange, offset world of her dream lobby. There's the static again, like a shiver she can't control, and a kaleidoscope of light and color. As disoriented as she's ever been, Darcy blinks through the tears—oh, she's _crying_ —and scrambles upright.

There are two figures facing off just in front of her, and Darcy tries to wrap her head around the fact that both of these are technically… her? Manifestations of her subconscious, at least.

" _Begone,_ " says the sparking one in the kind of pants-wettingly commanding tone that she herself has never been capable of. It has its back to her, its form like cracked porcelain with light spilling out.

" _Thisss isn't your domain any longer,_ spirit," says the cloaked and hooded figure facing them both. The hood shifts and Darcy really hates herself for watching as many horror films as she does, because _wow,_ that is terrifying. Too many teeth and nary a dentist in sight.

Personally, Darcy is rooting for the angry lightning one.

" _Justice can be served just as well on this side of the Veil."_

There's a crack of electricity like a warning shot, and the tooth-gnashing shade slithers back.

" _Your battles are many, but your form is singular and_ weak. _You will not see your goals come to fruition. Injustice is a many-armed foe, and its reach stretches farther than you can ever hope to tou—"_

The bolt that strikes next is bright enough that Darcy has to shield her eyes, but she can still hear the screeches of the shade.

" _You forget who I am, Despair. Your words are_ nothing. _BEGONE."_

When the figure in front of her turns, Darcy is still blinking away spots. The air smells strongly of ozone and the second shade is nowhere to be seen.

The figure—a man-shaped being—cocks his head.

"You shouldn't be here." His voice has lost some of its reverberation and depth, and even as she watches, some of the lighted cracks on his body seal, the glow dimming.

"Believe me, I'd rather be on a beach somewhere," Darcy says, and if her voice shakes a tad, well she _did_ just pop out of a nightmare.

This is weird. Not "I'm not wearing any pants in public" weird, but still beyond Darcy's usual dream weirdness threshold.

She doesn't normally do this, because it's _dumb,_ but she's curious as to how the shade will respond.

"Am I dreaming?" she asks, half hopeful that it will revert to normal dream-person status and give her a nonsense answer.

"Of course," it— _he_ —says, and Darcy's heart sinks. He steps closer, brows drawn. "And I think it's time that you _wake up."_

* * *

Darcy bolts upright in bed, her phone alarm blaring.

"Holy _shit."_

* * *

E/N

This chapter is actually getting its own fic. It'll probably only be available on my ao3 account, though, as FFN is not particularly friendly to crossovers.


End file.
